Gee's Blog World: Readness is a slick new article recommendation engine, a la Last.fm

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Readness is a slick new article recommendation engine, a la Last.fm

TheNextWeb likens Readness to Last.fm, and I have to agree that it's an apt comparison. This new article recommendation service tracks what you read (and what your friends read, if you choose to connect with them) and generates suggestions for online reading material that you shouldn't miss. Basically, Readness scrobbles news articles the way that Last.fm scrobbles songs.

To use Readness, you have to log in through Facebook Connect (I know, I know, but it's worth it), and then go ahead and install a browser extension. So far, Chrome is the only browser supported, but I'm hoping Firefox and Safari follow soon. Right now, Readness tracks every article that you open. However, TNW says that it will soon only add articles that you leave open for a couple of minutes; that will increase the chances of recording things you've actually read. Currently, you've got 15 minutes to remove something from your history if you don't want it to count.

I'm looking forward to seeing Readness expand beyond Chrome and offer better control over which articles you scrobble, but the idea is a brilliant one. The recommendations, in my brief test run, have been good. If you're looking for a way to cut through the massive clutter of your RSS diet, Readness is worth a look.